A Note to Readers xi
Introduction: How an Injury Led Me to Irrationality and to the Research Described Here xxi
Chapter 1 The Truth about Relativity: Why Everything Is Relative-Even When It Shouldn't Be 1
Chapter 2 The Fallacy of Supply and Demand: Why the Price of Pearls-and Everything Else-Is Up in the Air 23
Chapter 3 The Cost of Zero Cost: Why We Often Pay Too Much When We Pay Nothing 49
Chapter 4 The Cost of Social Norms: Why We Are Happy to Do Things, but Not When We Are Paid to Do Them 67
Chapter 5 The Influence of Arousal: Why Hot Is Much Hotter Than We Realize 89
Chapter 6 The Problem of Procrastination and Self-Control: Why We Can't Make Ourselves Do What We Want to Do 109
Chapter 7 The High Price of Ownership: Why We Overvalue What We Have 127
Chapter 8 Keeping Doors Open: Why Options Distract Us from Our Main Objective 139
Chapter 9 The Effect of Expectations: Why the Mind Gets What It Expects 155
Chapter 10 The Power of Price: Why a 50-Cent Aspirin Can Do What a Penny Aspirin Can't 173
Chapter 11 The Context of Our Character, Part I: Why We Are Dishonest, and What We Can Do about It 195
Chapter 12 The Context of Our Character, Part II: Why Dealing with Cash Makes Us More Honest 217
Chapter 13 Beer and Free Lunches: What Is Behavioral Economics, and Where Are the Free Lunches? 231
Bonus Material Added for the Revised and Expanded Edition: Reflections and Anecdotes about Some of the Chapters 279
Thanks 331
List of Collaborators 335
Notes 341
Bibliography and Additional Readings 345
Index 355